Notebooking, Teaching, and Technology

I saw this in a first grade class and liked the idea. The teacher said she purchased it at Walmart for $9. She said to go to the automotive section and ask for a mechanics drip pan. She backs her behavior sticks with magnets and the students move them around but I could see it being used in a variety of different ways. You can make your own magnetic poetry and have students use it in a center. You could use it put the unit vocabulary word of the day on it. I really thought someone could get creative with its use.

Want to try notebooking but are completely overwhelmed and don't know where to start? Here is what I do it.... Start with the standards and the title page. Move on to the vocabulary for the unit (for me it is the Bingo board). Those two either take up the first day or the first couple of days in a new unit for me. Look over your standards and see what logically makes sense to you to teach next. Our inquiry standards end with safety but I bump it up to being the first thing I address, because it makes sense to me. Our weather unit starts with the water cycle as the first indicator but I bump the one up about weather tools, again because it makes sense to introduce the tools first. I look at the resources I have for what I am going to teach - textbook, science kits, videos, etc. and decide what I can use to go on the LH (learning/lesson side). Then I decide what the student is going to do on the RH (reinforcing/reflection) page ( foldable , notes, acrostic, illustrated outline, ...

The other night I meet with a group of third grade teachers who are notebooking this year. They noted that this year they only have 30 minutes a day to teach science. In reality that time is reduced to 20-25 minutes when you factor in transition and settle time. The students do go to a science lab once a week, which helps, but the question was, "How do you structure your class to notebook with such a limited amount of time?" My suggestion was to break up the lesson so that one day you would teach the lesson whole group (so covering that LH side) and then the next day you would do a short review and then the independent work on the RH side (or it might be a lab you do with the information the day before). Doing it this way you would cover two lessons a week. Friday would be a quiz, make up or video day. I looked at the standards and indicators and it could be done (it would be tight but possible). My week might look like this.... Monday - Introduction of landforms. Create a...

I was watching a show tonight where a person was standing on ice that started to crack. They were told to lay down to spread out their weight more evenly and to start moving back to shore this way. That got me thinking about the water experiment I posted the other day and I thought you could add a different question into the mix. Does the shape of a container affect the weight of the liquid in it? So if I pour water into a cup and weigh it would it weigh the same as if I poured that same amount of liquid in a cookie sheet? It would be fun to see children discuss it and then test it (recording results in their notebook). All you would need is three different size containers one that would spread out the water in a normal way, one that would condensed the water into a tight space, and then one that spread it out. You would also need a scale that could zero out the container weight prior to adding the water. This is a simple, relatively inexpensive (I hope) experiment that could be done a...

I was at a Girl Scout camp training this weekend for adults and we had this discussion about how much a gallon of water weighs (I think we settled on 8 pounds). That got me thinking....would an 8 oz glass of water weigh the same as other liquids? Milk, orange juice, orange juice with plup, tomato juice? I thought that might make a fun classroom discussion. Students could see the different liquids being poured, make observations and then a hypothesis. They could test their weighing and measuring skills to come up with the answer.

In my class last year we had a lot of transitions between teachers. It was becoming problematic at the beginning of the year getting the timing of the transitions down. I wouldn't know I had to line up my students until I saw the other classes line up in the hall. I looked for an alarm clock that had multiple alarms on it to help me out, when my son pointed out that my cell phone had six programmable alarms. I set all six of those alarms to go off 5 minutes before we were suppose to line up in the hall. I explained the procedures to the children and I put the student who sat close to my desk in charge of turning off the alarm when it went off (they also had to make sure I heard it). It was GREAT. All the children heard the alarm and knew they had 5 minutes to finish up and clean up. None of the other teachers were upset I was running late and the kids were happy they were never late for recess (that use to happen sometimes :) Make sure if you are observed, and the alarm goes off, ...

Lining up elementary school children and walking them through the halls is always an adventure. I've seen teachers do it many different ways. Yesterday I observed a teacher telling her students that when they stop there should be a "pair on the square" (meaning one pair of shoes per floor tile). I jumped into the line between some kids when I saw it to see how tight a fit it was...since I teach older kids. I thought it was a bit tight (granted I am not a small teacher) but I liked the "pair in the square" concept. Another one I've seen at a second grade and below level is "hips and lips". Students who start getting gabby and grabby in line have to put their outside hand on their hip and their inside (to the wall) hand on their lips. I often threaten my fourth graders with that one :) Would love to hear any other fun ways that teachers control hallway behavior.